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The Big Think Interview

172 episodes

Intimate interviews with the world’s biggest thinkers.

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All Episodes (172)

A person is leaping between two buildings against a clear blue sky.

The alarm bells are sounding for young men. Will we listen?

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21 min

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with

A Möbius strip made from paper with printed text is displayed against a dark background.

Lawrence Wright: Fiction goes where reporting cannot follow

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16 min

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with

Lawrence Wright

A person with curly brown hair wearing a black shirt and gray t-shirt sits against a plain white background, gesturing with both hands raised near their chest.

Jesse Eisenberg: How to rewire your anxiety into authenticity

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11 min

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with

Jesse Eisenberg

A digitally rendered black hole with a dark center and a glowing, distorted ring of light surrounding it.

Brian Cox: The bizarre history of black holes

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23 min

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with

Why the American dream no longer moves upward

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15 min

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with

A silhouette of a human head with swirling arrows inside the brain, illustrating a concept of circular thought or mental processes.

How to train your nervous system for optimal performance

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9 min

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with

Two men in suits face each other against a yellow background, one yelling with a clenched fist, the other pointing and appearing angry.

The 4 hidden forces underneath every argument

Your brain: the most important sex organ in the body

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9 min

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with

A triangle labeled "The Fraud Triangle" with its three sides named Incentive, Opportunity, and Rationalization, on an orange background.

Inside the mind of a white-collar criminal

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32 min

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with

Kelly Richmond Pope

An older man with long white hair and a suit looks at the camera, standing in front of a blurred background with bookshelves.

Michio Kaku: Why we don’t even rank on the Kardashev scale

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12 min

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with

A person walks barefoot on a slackline stretched high above the ocean, with one arm raised for balance and cliffs visible at each end.

Nate Silver: Habits of highly successful risk-takers

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5 min

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with

Two red-toned, woodcut-style portraits side by side: one of a gorilla and one of an older man with a beard, on a beige background.

The history of natural selection, in 7 minutes

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8 min

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with

Silhouette of a person overlaid with a sunset sky and a full moon, with tall grass in the foreground.

Sam Harris: Experience emotions without being consumed by them

Use the Triple Check Method to jumpstart your brain

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7 min

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with

Anne-Laure Le Cunff

A hand holding a sealed envelope emerges from turbulent ocean waves against a black background.

Yuval Noah Harari: How to safeguard your mind in the age of junk information

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13 min

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with

Yuval Noah Harari

A man looking at a meteorite.

How two freak accidents shaped human evolution

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20 min

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with

Sean B. Carroll

Two torn paper cutouts of open mouths are positioned against a black background, both appearing to be yelling or shouting.

The true cost of always needing to win an argument

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6 min

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with

Jefferson Fisher

A red flower with a green stem and leaf drawn using overlapping scribbled lines on a black background.

Anxiety gives you an advantage. Unlock it with neuroplasticity

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18 min

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with

How the illusion of self shapes your reality

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17 min

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with

A city skyline is reflected inside a single water droplet hanging from the tip of a metallic object against a gradient sky background.

The laboratory accident that saved 500 million lives

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10 min

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with

A radio telescope points at the night sky, where stars are arranged in the shape of a large question mark.

The Fermi Paradox has a terrifying answer: The Dark Forest

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13 min

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with

A magnifying glass focusing on concentric circles against a plain teal background.

Brian Cox: The Planck scale is where physics breaks

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19 min

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with

An illustration of a human brain tightly bound with red rope, set against a textured background with blue and brown patches.

Sam Harris: Breaking the thought trap of anger

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21 min

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with

Two silhouetted figures against a blue background, with one appearing to whisper to the other.

CIA psychology: Ask questions that make people reveal everything

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17 min

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with

Andrew Bustamante

A foam structure shaped like a human brain is surrounded by translucent bubbles on a black background.

The science behind the 10-minute brain reset walk

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18 min

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with

A heart shape is cut out of paper, revealing a circuit board with computer chips and code underneath.

The ethical crisis lurking in the background of the AI boom

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4 min

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with

A man wearing a black blazer, graphic T-shirt, and backwards cap stands against a plain background with his hands raised in a questioning gesture.

Why Kevin Smith bet $27,575 on a movie no one showed up for

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6 min

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with

A person sits alone on a bench against a yellow background, looking down at a smartphone.

The great friendship collapse: Inside The Anti-Social Century

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12 min

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with

A monarch butterfly with orange and black wings rests on water, creating a ripple pattern around it.

The impossibility of control in a butterfly-effected world

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6 min

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with

The U.S. Capitol building is shown with large red tape strips crossed over it against a blue sky, symbolizing restriction or a government shutdown.

Policy and process is paralyzing the US government

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8 min

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with

Related

Close-up of a sepia-toned drawing showing a person with crossed arms, wearing a robe with highlights, against a background with a partial view of a stone wall.

This research team studies gratitude. Here’s what they’ve found.

Is gratitude to a deity different from gratitude to other people? Psychology and neuroscience professor Sarah Schnitker explains.

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3 min

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with

Sarah Schnitker

A person is leaping between two buildings against a clear blue sky.

The alarm bells are sounding for young men. Will we listen?

“It’s certainly clear that the issues of boys and men haven’t gone away in the last few years. If anything, they’re getting even more attention, which is good when it’s the right kind of attention.”

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21 min

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with

A Möbius strip made from paper with printed text is displayed against a dark background.

Lawrence Wright: Fiction goes where reporting cannot follow

“As a reporter, you can look into the eyes of the people you’re talking to and try to evaluate what they’re thinking when they say what they say. But you are not really gonna get into their brain. There’s only one artistic form that allows you to do that. “

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16 min

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with

Lawrence Wright

A person with curly brown hair wearing a black shirt and gray t-shirt sits against a plain white background, gesturing with both hands raised near their chest.

Jesse Eisenberg: How to rewire your anxiety into authenticity

“The way my mind works is just out of anxiety and catastrophization.”

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11 min

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with

Jesse Eisenberg

A human hand is positioned palm up below a floating anatomical model of a human brain against a plain light blue background.

How humans create reality through language and beliefs

Language is a huge part of human development, even the language we keep to ourselves. Three experts explain how words and beliefs can change our brains and our lives:

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3 min

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with

Agustín Fuentes